Donald Miller

“Sunday Morning Music – Gotye” by Katie Herzig

From Storyline:
We’re changing the way we approach our Sunday Morning Music posts. For the next several months, these posts will be authored by artists so you can get a glimpse into what inspires them. We hope you enjoy today’s post from our friend, Katie Herzig.

I had the chance to see Gotye live a few times last summer when our paths crossed on tour and friends of mine were opening for him. I was blown away by his band’s live sound, the production, the performance. The first show I saw was at Red Rocks and it was magical. He has huge videos projecting behind him throughout the show. One of the songs with its video caught my attention. It’s called “Eyes Wide Open.” Honestly I didn’t pay much attention to the lyrics of this song until I saw the images put with it, and then it became very moving.

Gotye videos are unapologetically quirky, artistic, beautiful, creative, etc… so there’s that. But here’s why I think I am affected by this song/video and its lyrics:

It’s daring to describe the end of a story that feels relevant to the one we humans could currently be writing for ourselves.

“We walk the plank with our eyes wide open.”

We grow up in a world, in the holocene, in the world as we know it, and we count on that world to stay the same. But we are actually living in a time where we’re not only starting to see, but feel the impact of a planet responding to how we treat it. And it’s quickly becoming a very real, human, moral story. I won’t go into those details because they’re easy to find when we’re looking … with our eyes wide open.

-kh

A look at the lyrics:

We walk the plank with our eyes wide open.

So this is the end of the story,
Everything we had, everything we did,
Is buried in dust,
And this dust is all that’s left of us.
But only a few ever worried.

Well the signs were clear, they had no idea.
You just get used to living in fear,
Or give up when you can’t even picture your future.

We walk the plank with our eyes wide open.

Some people offered up answers.
We made out like we heard, they were only words.
They didn’t add up to a change in the way we were living,
And the saddest thing is all of it could have been avoided.

But it was like to stop consuming’s to stop being human,
And why would I make a change if you won’t?
We’re all in the same boat, staying afloat for the moment.

We walk the plank with our eyes wide open.

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Katie Herzig

This is a guest post by Katie Herzig. Purchase her latest album, The Waking Sleep, on her website and make sure to follow along on Twitter (@katieherzig) for regular updates.